Karme Choling turns 40 this year and we are planning a birthday bash to remember for the Memorial Day weekend (May 28 - 31). There is so much to celebrate. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche's vision, exertion and boundless generosity gave rise to a place where seeds of Dharma are planted in our mindstreams. This is a celebration of Buddhism coming to the West. It is also a celebration of all the people who came here, worked here and were transformed here. It is a celebration of the Shambhala community and Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche's continued work and guidance in creating enlightened society. Here this vision meets daily reality.
We invite you to share your stories about Karme Choling. Please let us know the joys, the heartbreak and the realizations you experienced here. For our part we will share some gems from the Karme Choling archives, vignettes of our life here today and visions of Karme Choling's future. Of course we will post detailed plans for the party as well.
You are invited as our guest, so please let us know if you are coming by registering here.
For Karmê Chöling’s 40th anniversary celebration over Memorial Day weekend Jack Niland showered us with creative blessings of various kinds. Not only did he produce and direct two of Trungpa Rinpoche’s plays (more about those in a separate post) but he also created a series of banners that were hung throughout the house, the Pavilion and the dining tent – a brilliant display of the symbols of the Shambhala world.
Jack arrived at Karmê Chöling several days before the weekend celebration began with more than 40 banners that he had produced single-handedly in his apartment in New York. “For the 40th I wanted to create a new visual vision with the banners based on sunshine and I wanted to sum up Shambhala in 21 symbols – like the essence of Shambhala as Trungpa developed it.”
Photo by Jeffrey Mann
From the very beginning of the Vidyadhara’s arrival in the U.S. Jack had a part in helping to bring that vision into forms. It was a very young Jack Niland who painted the front door of Karmê Chöling under painstakingly specific directions from Trungpa Rinpoche in 1970. Rinpoche referred to the front door as the gateway to dharma in the west. The door has been repainted by many artists through the years, most recently Peter Fried and Catherine Clark, and in each case they have tried to stay as true as possible to the original design.
Jack told us about an occasion, years ago, when Trungpa came to his banner studio in Boulder. He instructed Jack to print a big yellow sun on white satin, and while the ink was still wet Rinpoche took the garuda seal and silk screened it in red on the sun. When Rinpoche pulled the screen up he said, “Look. The ink has penetrated the yellow sun so it looks as though the seal is inside of the sun instead of on top of the sun. That’s how you should think of it.” ” That blew me away,” Jack said, “because I had never thought of printing wet on wet – it just wasn’t done.”
When the Sakyong appointed Jack an ‘Artist of the Kalapa Court’, he presented him with the image of a black Ashe on top of a gold sun. The image was on a shikishi board. Jack nailed the award very securely to the wall above his bed. As the time drew close to do the project for Karmê Chöling, Jack was having a hard time figuring out what the project should be. At 3 o’clock one morning he was sitting in his bed with a pad of paper, thoroughly stumped and becoming depressed, when suddenly the board popped off the wall, fell, and hit him on the head. “My first reaction was, ‘Oh, I’m a failure as an artist because I can’t think of anything and my award fell down’.” But as he picked it up from the floor he realized, “Oh my God, this is the project!” And that is how Karmê Chöling came to be filled with glorious banners each containing a gold sun and a symbol of Shambhala.
We rolled out the Cornerstone Campaign at a High Tea on Saturday afternoon on the lawn outside the pavilion. Jane Arthur and Acharya Suzann Duquette (who is also the Chair of the Expansion Committee) gave a short presentation about Karmê Chöling’s plans to move us forward into the next 40 + years while people nibbled tea cakes and sipped champagne in the brilliant afternoon air. Katie Trautz and Julia Wayne played beautiful fiddle music and we were delighted by a surprise visit from poet Anne Waldman. Ms. Waldman, who lives in Colorado, was in the area for a brief residency at the Vermont Studio Center. She heard it was our birthday and came to visit for an afternoon. We were treated to a reading/dancing of a ritual performance-piece entitled “Neuralinguistically: This is the Writing Dance” and the reading of a transcript of an “archival” 1975 conversation between the Vidyadhara, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and others. The archival piece is now in a recent anthology that she co-edited with Laura Wright, entitled BEATS AT NAROPA.
After two years of preparation, construction of the cabin will begin this month. The groundbreaking ceremony during the 40th Anniversary celebration was one of the highlights of the weekend. More than 100 people hiked up the road in a long stream passing through a lhasang of juniper (created by Ms. Cynther Greene, Karme Choling Retreat Master) as we entered into what, for years, has been called the Nirmanakaya meadow. The day was magnificent with clouds moving through a blue sky.
The celebration began with an offering of Genjoraku, a bugaku 7th century Japanese court dance, by Acharya Arawana Hayashi, powerful and magical amongst the tall trees of the meadow.
A special shovel was created for the actual groundbreaking by Ms. Catherine Clark. The shovel blade has a gold face marked with a black Ashe. Acharya Rockwell and Director Jane Arthur made the first cut tossing earth in the air with glee. They were followed by Acharyas Suzann Duquette, Michael Greenleaf and Arawana Hayashi then all former directors of Karme Choling who were present for the weekend: David Nichtern, Jude Robison, Roger Guest, Tom Bell and Bill Brauer as well as Dr. Stuart Lord, President of Naropa University.
After the gleeful shoveling Acharya Rockwell said a few words about the cabin then engaged in a lively and informative conversation with the assembly.
The design of the cabin is based on the Sakyong’s Scorpion Seal Retreat cabin in Kalapa Valley in Nova Scotia. The cabin being built at Karme Choling is a prototype for a series of cabins to be built at Shambhala Centers around the world.
Donations to the Scoripon Seal Retreat Cabin can be made here.
The party is happening in a couple of days! Everyone here is busily preparing for your arrival.
We are looking forward to seeing everyone here and also invite your “virtual participation.” We invite you to share your stories of Karme Choling in the comments. We’ll be happy to include them in the “Inside Karme Choling” session on Sunday morning.
If you are planning to come and we don’t know about it yet, please take a minuter to register. Our coordinators and kitchen staff will really appreciate it.
Video credit: Painting of Ekajati by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche used with permission.
The party is happening this weekend! Chronicles Radio is featuring an interview with Ashe Acharya John Rockwell, Acharya Suzann Duquette, Executive Director Jane Arthur and Maha Coordinator Bill Brauer conducted by Carolyn Krusinski. It’s a great preview of the weekend attractions as well as reflections about Karme Choling. This Special Edition is available here. Have a listen and we’ll see you here this weekend.
Preparations for the 40th Anniversary are kicking into high gear at Karme Choling. Memorial Day Weekend celebrations are shaping up to be deliciously rich – a delightful party mixing the best of Shambhala culture: practice, art and celebration. We are very excited to announce that the Scorpion Seal Cabin Groundbreaking will take place on Saturday, May 29th. We invite you to join us in manifesting Shambhala terma on this amazing occasion.
Here is the schedule for the weekend: (LATEST VERSION AVAILABLE HERE).
1973, outside a tent on Karmê Chöling’s front lawn, where Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche was teaching the Message of Milarepa, a pioneering student demonstrates the peril and promise of American car culture.
